Poverty grew nationwide last year, but the increase was even greater in San Diego County, where more than a million people are struggling with economic hardship, according to new census data.
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Nearly one in five children (19.2 percent) lived below the federal poverty level (FPL) in 2010 -- an increase of nearly 3 percent from the previous year.
The Center on Policy Initiatives reports a third of the county's population lived in economic hardship, or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. "Almost half of them were in deepest poverty, with incomes below FPL, which varies by family size and -- at about $22,300 for a family of four -- is acknowledged to under-count true poverty," CPI stated in a report.
CPI also found:
- 77,401 more people than the previous year are living below the official poverty line.
- Nearly 25,000 full-time workers earned below-poverty incomes. Another 97,000 adults worked part-time and lived in poverty.
- Poverty rates for African Americans and Latinos remain almost double that of whites, but the white households had the largest decrease in median income in 2010, a drop of 11 percent.
- El Cajon had the highest poverty rate in the county: 29.7 percent.
